They Took It All Away
by CrimsonCat
Summary: Buffy's thoughts as she tries to sleep the night after being cured. Spoilers for 'Normal Again'. R&R plz.


Willow says that it's over now.  
Now that I actually drank the antidote.. Willow says I should be back to normal within a few hours. No more hallucinations. No more mom. No more dad. No more institute. Just pure un-adulterated reality.  
  
Yay.  
This is me, doing the dance of joy.  
(Was the sarcasm too subtle there for you?)  
So, it's back to reality.. And I drank the antidote why?  
What's so great about reality anyway?  
  
Back to reality means back to the not feeling. Back to the pushing myself through each day because Dawn needs me, or Willow needs me, or Xander needs me.. Somebody always needs me. Needs me to save them from this week's big bad because they aren't strong enough on their own. After all these years of living on the hell mouth, you think at least one of them would have learned how to protect themselves when I wasn't around.. but that would be asking too much.  
  
Back to reality means having to drag that thing with Spike into the daylight and let it burn, if you'll pardon the bad punning. Because either I tell them, or he does. And then, they'll know. They'll know just who I really am these days. But, then again, why shouldn't they know? They were the ones who made me this way.  
  
And I wonder what the fuck I'm still doing here.  
  
Back there.. I had everything I ever wanted. Both my parents to love me, a normal life.. no vampires, no watcher taking away my life at 16, no witches, or werewolves, or things that go bump in the night. No end of the world. No back breaking responsibility to cripple me and make me so broken.. No Spike to turn my world upside down and inside out until I could no longer see. No more being numb and filled with broken parts and pieces.  
  
But I gave it all up for them. My friends. Because my freedom would have cost them their lives. But I died twice for them.. Just this once they couldn't say 'look, Buffy, it's your turn. We'll save you this once.' They couldn't just lay down and die for me? It might be selfish, but after all these years, haven't I deserved the right to be selfish?  
Damnit, I gave up HEAVEN for them! They couldn't let me have my parent's back?!?  
  
Oh God.. why did I come back here?  
  
I came back because they dragged me back. They always do. I'll always come back for them, because one way or another, they are my friends. They do so much for me, and I love them more than I could put into words. So, I had to come back. For them. (Always for them).  
I gave up my innocence, I gave up my life, I gave up heaven, I gave up my parents, I gave up my sanity.. They've taken it all, and still they want more. And I wonder just how much more I have to give.  
  
I came back because I am the Slayer. It's my job, but it's more than that. It's my duty. My destiny.  
(But, God, I'm so fed up with destiny..)  
  
But now, as I lay awake in my bed, I can't sleep. All I can do is wonder, and think, and pray to whatever God that might still care enough to listen. Because as I lay here and listen to Dawn's even breathing down the hall, I have to wonder which world is really real.  
The one where I'm the Slayer, or the one where I'm just another girl in an institute.  
  
God help me, I would have let them die to have that world as my own. I would have let that fucking demon devour them until they were as dead as I am now. God help me, I wish this were just an illusion. I wish it wasn't real. I wish I was in an institute where they would be able to make all of the pain and numbness go away. Because I can't handle this anymore. I used to be strong, but I gave them my strength, and now there is nothing left.  
  
And I keep praying that this is just a dream. That I'll wake up and I'll be laying in that white bed again. That I won't smell of grease and demon and filth..  
  
I keep praying, but I don't have any faith left. They took that too.  
God doesn't give miracles to the faithless. Even if they gave it away to save the world. There is no pity for the dead. And that's all I am. Death is all they cared enough to leave me. 


End file.
